This post was originally written in Italian by Paolo Gambardella. It has been translated by an AI agent and may contain inaccuracies.
Ho voglia di rinnovare un po’ le mie iniziative online. Finora il blog, LinkedIn e qualche podcast sono stati i miei tre pilastri. Adesso però l’editore si è svegliato e si impegnerà a rivedere il mio libro e ad aiutarmi a raggiungere i potenziali lettori, quindi voglio migliorare il mio modo di comunicare.
Game Design in Practice
The book is called Game Design in Practice: A Professional’s Guide to Entertainment Ideation and it’s published by Jettelly, a Toronto-based publisher that produces books and courses for video game developers.
It’s a practical guide to the ideation phase — the moment when a rough idea takes shape and becomes a concept. I’ve packed into it everything I’ve learned over years of mobile and indie development: understanding what players are looking for from entertainment, looking beyond genre labels to find a game’s core experience, brainstorming with the team, building playable prototypes, and finally pitching your vision through briefs, pitch decks, and demos.
It’ll come out in English, as an ebook, one chapter at a time. If you’re interested, you can already sign up to the wishlist on the book’s page.
Until now I’ve used these channels in a one-way fashion. Public comments don’t really appeal to me — partly because I often end up having to moderate them. I prefer private contact, which allows for real relationships and genuine conversations with people. It’s brought me a lot of joy and some new friends. So the time has come to rethink my communication strategy and make it easier for those kinds of connections to happen.
Alongside the book I’m developing a few game ideas, so I might add a video dimension to all this. I’m thinking short vertical videos where I comment on a video game while it’s playing on screen — what works, what I’d change, what’s the idea underneath it all. With one twist: the game would be mine. That way I could reach people who respond better to visual content, and who knows, new opportunities might open up. It’s also a way of checking how fresh my ideas actually are, so sooner or later I’ll give it a go.
One challenge is language. Italian is my mother tongue, but my Italian has been coloured by Castilian Spanish, since I’ve been living in Spain for a long time. I make mistakes and use constructions that you simply wouldn’t hear back in Italy; the result is understandable, but not good enough for my perfectionist streak. English is the language of business, but there’s an enormous amount of English-language content out there, and I think native speakers use a richer, more varied register than I can manage. Spanish could also work, but I’m not sure. Which language would you prefer to read and listen to me in?
That’s all the news for today: I’m pressing on with the book and carrying on making my games. I can only do this thanks to new technologies, which let me juggle several things at once by building my own tools from scratch.
If you have any advice — on language, on the videos, or on anything else — feel free to drop me a private message on LinkedIn: I’m all ears.